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Topic Review (Newest First)

09-01-2012 04:19 PM

Kunsthure

And have babies!

I went away to Florida for two weeks and came back to this:

It's amazing how much things can change in two weeks; the moss really took off. I also came back to a tank covered in mulm () and four dead ramshorns. They are dying slowly. I think they were of weak stock to begin with because there certainly isn't a lack of food.

I added an amano to eat the hair algae and I had no idea they were so messy! I watched it pick up bits of Flourite and toss them away looking for food. In the process, it was throwing mulm all around. It has not eaten the hair algae; just made a mess. I haven't fed the blue velvets any veggies or wafers since I've been back because I'm trying to force the amano to eat the hair algae; I know that once it gets a taste of other food, it won't eat algae. So I have no new saddled females because they've been left to foraging.

There's been another critter addition. The assassin snail babies are emerging in the 20g so I'm moving them to the 13g to take care of the mini-ramshorns and baby MTS. I'm tired of squishing snails. Every baby I find in the 20g is being moved. They're cute little things, actually.

I also came home to a berried female with eyes in her eggs so I knew they would be hatching any day. I have seen three babies so far but the weird thing is that they're orange. They're too small to be baby RCS that I missed when I redid the tank, so they must be baby BVs. The other two berried females' eggs are darkening and now I'm on eye watch.

I added three pieces of cholla which immediately garnered interest from almost everyone. I didn't know cholla was so messy. Bits are being cast off as the shrimp eat, especially that pig amano. I'm going nuts because I can't vacuum now that I have babies in the tank. I might have to buy more ramshorns because I've been told that they'll keep the tank spotless, ie mulm-free. (I hate mulm with a passion in case I haven't said that already).

I've been finding a planaria here and there and I'm not happy about that. I don't know why they've shown up because they weren't there before I left and the shrimp were not fed anything while I was gone. There aren't enough for me to treat the tank but I worry their population will explode once I start feeding the shrimp again.

WC is set for tomorrow as it's long overdue, three weeks or so. I don't even want to know how the params have changed after that much time.

-Lisa

08-01-2012 01:10 PM

Kunsthure

Quote:

Originally Posted by dannylc

Cleaned up the pic a bit for a better look at the shrimp lol thought it only fair to share it.

You have some serious noise in your pics, if you can use manual mode on your camera turn down your ISO to maybe 100 with 300/sec shutter speed and F6. may get better results but keep playing about till you get it right

Thanks for the photo tips. These pics have been taken with my iPhone. It's faster to get them posted online than to break out the tripod, set up the DSLR, set up my lights, take photos then post process them. I've done a lot of macro shrimp work, actually. I posted a few in the invert section. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...9&postcount=12

-Lisa

07-31-2012 06:35 PM

rocksmom

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunsthure

...I bought what were supposed to be blue ramshorns from a member here. They all arrived alive despite major USPS screw ups. I had them in QT for a week because I'd rather have one die in a Tupperware bowl than under a rock in the tank and cause an ammonia spike. One of the smallest ones did die. I put the remaining nine in the tank this morning. They look white, not blue, but they were cheap, so I can't complain. I just hope I'm not unleashing certain doom upon the tank. I don't want a population explosion and I don't want them to push the shrimp out of the feeding dish like the mystery did. ...

Good luck with your snails. I added pink ramshorns to my shrimp tank and exactly what you said happened. They would crowd onto the shrimp food which blocked the shrimp and then there was a HUGE population explosion. Hundreds of babies. I've since fed almost all the adults and quite a few babies to my loaches and dwarf puffer. There are still babies everywhere though.

07-31-2012 04:41 PM

dannylc

Cleaned up the pic a bit for a better look at the shrimp lol thought it only fair to share it.

You have some serious noise in your pics, if you can use manual mode on your camera turn down your ISO to maybe 100 with 300/sec shutter speed and F6. may get better results but keep playing about till you get it right

07-31-2012 04:19 PM

Kunsthure

Week 2

Everyone seems to be settling in. I have had no more deaths and my berried female is still berried, so I'm happy. I found some beautiful molts in the tank this morning and I have a few females that could end up berried because they are as stuffed as my berried female was. But as of this morning, no new mamas-to-be.

These guys aren't getting the concept of the feeding dish. I'm not getting the shrimp balls or sissy fights that I get with my RCS. But of course, the RCS are accustomed to gourmet catered meals already. I'll find maybe three or four shrimp in the dish at a time while the rest seem oblivious to it. And it looks to be the same individuals in the dish each time. I'd like to see more feeding from the dish because my RCS colony grew, with more saddled and berried females, and more molts once I started feeding them directly instead of allowing them to forage and steal what they could from the pygmy cories. The BVs are still small, so any little bit helps.

The flame moss is starting to develop some hair algae and BBA. I'm not sure what to do about it other than pick it out by hand and trim the moss. I've had bad experiences with Excel and nerites, so I'm not going to take the risk of harming them. My photoperiod is about 8 hours and the light is only a 15w T8. I'm going to go to Petco today to see if they have any Amanos to take care of the hair algae.

I bought what were supposed to be blue ramshorns from a member here. They all arrived alive despite major USPS screw ups. I had them in QT for a week because I'd rather have one die in a Tupperware bowl than under a rock in the tank and cause an ammonia spike. One of the smallest ones did die. I put the remaining nine in the tank this morning. They look white, not blue, but they were cheap, so I can't complain. I just hope I'm not unleashing certain doom upon the tank. I don't want a population explosion and I don't want them to push the shrimp out of the feeding dish like the mystery did.

-Lisa

07-25-2012 07:15 PM

speedie408

Some shrimp are super finicky indeed, not all. You look at these finicky shrimp wrong and they flop over like those fainting goats lol. One minute they're ok and the next, they're dead. That's just part of keeping shrimp. Not all shrimp are created equal, even within the same variant.

07-25-2012 07:02 PM

somewhatshocked

Wasn't trying to step on the toes of the shrimp source. Regardless of whether or not shrimp are shipped correctly, they can and do occasionally die from the stress. I have it happen all the time when ordering from experienced shrimpers. (I also occasionally receive foreign shipments that get tied up for up to 8 days and never lose a shrimp, so try that one on for size - almost doesn't seem fair)

I do find that I lose less shrimp when they've been allowed to 'rest' (for lack of a better term at the moment) for several weeks before getting shipped to me.

Cleaning the substrate the day before the shrimp arrived and testing things/doing a water change probably means things are safe. But you never really know. Just like it's tough to know if a shrimp died from stress during shipping.

On a similar note: I carried a package of PRL CRS with me to Flagstaff a few weeks ago and they were banged around like crazy during the trip. Opened them up and they were fully colored, happy, not bothered in the least. Last night I transferred a PRL CRS to my CBS tank for breeding (can't justify the expense of a high quality female CBS at the moment) and the second the CRS hit the transfer cup - even prior to drip acclimation - she faded like woah. Of course, she colored up within a couple minutes of moving into her new tank but it's indicative of how finicky shrimp can be.

07-25-2012 05:55 PM

Kunsthure

I vacuumed the day before the shrimp arrived and did a 100% WC with Prime after I did. I don't normally vacuum any tank except the 37g, and that's just to get up the mess the cories make of the dead plant matter. I have no more plans to mess with the substrate, so don't worry.

Batiki nerites are small, like coronas and they have very interesting patterns. Take the stripes of a zebra nerite and scramble the lines a whole bunch in funky, wacky ways and you've got a batiki. I'll try to take some pics but they are all so so different that seeing one doesn't really give you an idea of all the possible patterns.

-Lisa

07-25-2012 05:18 PM

speedie408

Quote:

Originally Posted by somewhatshocked

Pomacea diffusa isn't a species that typically eat plants but they obviously create a lot of waste. I keep them in nearly all of my planted tanks with no issues.

The substrate change could definitely be your issue but it could also be that the shrimp were recently shipped to you. No matter the species, shipping is stressful. Especially if they were recently imported. (This is why I don't like to buy shrimp that haven't been allowed to settle in for 3-4 weeks before they get shipped to me. Just a risk I don't like to take.)

And definitely don't vacuum your substrate in a shrimp tank. I wouldn't even try cleaning the surface of it unless it's to remove large chunks of uneaten food. And even then, I'd just use a piece of airline tubing and do it quickly without disturbing the substrate too much.

They certainly ate up my nice downoi when I was keeping them. Out they went and my plants bounced back nicely.

You're assumptions could be right regarding shipping but if shipped "correctly" shrimp suffer very little. It's the water param changes/differences from one person to another that kills the shrimp. I say this because my sources pack very well and the shrimp only take 1 night to get to me via air cargo, insulated boxes with coldpacks, and big bags with lots of O2. If you've bought from me I don't Micky Mouse when it comes to packaging because my packing dept is OCD about it.

Obviously it could be many factors involved when shrimp die but we shouldn't assume things that could vary from seller to seller/ breeder to breeder. That's all.

Best,

Nick

07-25-2012 04:46 PM

somewhatshocked

Pomacea diffusa isn't a species that typically eat plants but they obviously create a lot of waste. I keep them in nearly all of my planted tanks with no issues.

The substrate change could definitely be your issue but it could also be that the shrimp were recently shipped to you. No matter the species, shipping is stressful. Especially if they were recently imported. (This is why I don't like to buy shrimp that haven't been allowed to settle in for 3-4 weeks before they get shipped to me. Just a risk I don't like to take.)

And definitely don't vacuum your substrate in a shrimp tank. I wouldn't even try cleaning the surface of it unless it's to remove large chunks of uneaten food. And even then, I'd just use a piece of airline tubing and do it quickly without disturbing the substrate too much.

07-25-2012 04:29 PM

speedie408

Subscribed .

Lovely little playground you got going on there for them BV's.

One thing I'd suggest you not do anymore is to stir up the substrate with a gravel vac. This only creates spikes in params which eventually kill shrimp. What you can do is gently wave the vac across the subtrate surface without actually touching it and suck up as much mulm as you can. Otherwise, just toss in lots of moss and floaters in there to suck up the nutrients and leave the mulm alone lol. I also think those mystery snails need to go (no offense because I know you love them dearly) but they excrete wayy too much poo for my liking. And they eat plants! haha

Sorry to hear about the deaths... stop messing with your substrate!

Nick

*edit* you already took out the mysteries! Great... what are batikis? lol Do they poo just as much?

07-25-2012 04:27 PM

Kunsthure

Yeah, blue pearls can't even come close to these guys! I call them the poor (wo)man's OEBT.

-Lisa

07-25-2012 04:14 PM

Chrisinator

That's really awesome!

07-25-2012 04:12 PM

Soothing Shrimp

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrisinator

Awesome!

Are the Blue Velvet a different name or your name for the Blue Pearls (I assume?)?

Pssst- blue velvets are different from pearls. They are actually specially bred cherries.

07-25-2012 04:11 PM

Soothing Shrimp

Lookin' good, gal! My blue velvets are some of my faves too- although my berried ones dropped their eggs due to being first timers.

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